Serial numbers are usually on small paper stickers or hand engraved in the metal in a printed box on the back of most older Carvers. The only Carver I know that has its serial number on the bottom is the M-400 Cube.

I must say that I have to agree with anatech regarding foreign made products. I've owned a number of Japanese made products that worked perfectly well, never had any issues whatsoever. With regard to the Japanese made products, I remember growing up in the '70s and looking at various cheap products you'll inevitably encounter and finding a number of them were made in Japan. Labor was cheap in Japan at the time compared to the US, and that's where the cheap products were made. It's not as if they were name brand products, they were the generic crap that would be generic crap whether these products (and I remember plastic was looked at with disdain at the time, too) were made in Japan or the US, or anywhere else for that matter.

I designed tooling for not quite 20 years for the heavy manufacturing industry. I got out of Michigan about 7 years into that stretch, so the various products for which I designed tooling drifted away from the automotive industry. In '95, I got a contract to work at the engine plant in Milwaukee for Harley Davidson. They were just tooling up to roll out the newly designed FL series engine, and I was part of the group working on that. It was interesting to be there at that time, as that was the first full redesign of a Harley Engine since the early '30s. The Evo engine wasn't a new design, as in from scratch, but a redesign of the existing engine.

I saw the last manual line come out of the plant. It was a line of drill presses that, if I recall correctly, drilled and tapped the various bolt holes in the engine cases. It was just below the engineering mezzanine where my office was in the plant.

I also was somewhat surprised to see the choices of machine tools the All-American company had made to build their engines. Mitsui-Seiki, Toyoda, Mori-Seiki, Okuma, Mazak were but a few among the machine tools I saw. The Capitol Drive Plant consisted of something like 90-95% foreign made machine tools. I'd guess that 10% where from Europe. The rest, US made. I don't have a problem with this, and spoke to one of the engineers that was on the group that determined what should be bought based on studies they did about the situation. He told me that they looked at Cincinnati Milacron's offerings, but could not justify buying them because they simply could not match the performance of the horizontal boring mills from Toyoda. Their studies concluded that the Toyodas were the best choice.

I do have to admit I find this a bit hypocritical, that being how Harley professes to be the All-American company, then does that, but that's just my belief. I fully understand why they did what they did, but the sheen I used to see is somewhat faded. I don't know if the ratios (and I'm just guessing on the numbers, but there were very very few American made machine tools no matter what) have changed in the meantime, but I doubt it.

John

"You're not drunk if you can lie on the floor without holding on." —Dean Martin

I'm more of an Italian bike guy at heart but do own 5 Buells at the moment and worked at Harley dealers for the last 6 years.
The great Amercian Freedom Machine with the Eagle and all of that red white and blue American Iron stuff is pretty much a marketing, lifestyle ploy. So much of the actual Harley-Davidson motorcycle is from Japan, China, Yugoslavia, you name it.
The chrome accessories and various doo dads are from Taiwan, leathers from India, helmets from China, you get the idea.
The Buell flagship model now has an Austrian engine with wheels from China, brakes and electrics from Japan, stuff from all over.
Strange as this may sound, the bikes are better because of this.
The old AMF bikes may have their appeal but they weren't exactly wonderful as actual motorcycles to use on a daily basis or go on a two week's vacation on.
This global outsourcing doesn't bother me very much as I grew up on Nortons, Triumphs, Ducatis, BMWs and Moto Guzzis.
Now it's Buell for me and Erik Buell has taken an innovative approach to a product and met with much resistance and disparagement along the way.
Sound like anyone you know?
Still, I'd like to see my stereo gear made here in the US and wasn't too thrilled to see MADE IN JAPAN on my brand new The Carver Reciever a zillion years ago. Made In China was even worse...

TFM-35 & CT-6 Japan Where was the AV-806x made,are they a good amp and what might be a fair price today for one thats in good condition ?? I'm looking around for something to go with a CT-28v I recently aquired. Opinions or alternative suggestions will be welcomed!GDB

gdb wrote:TFM-35 & CT-6 Japan Where was the AV-806x made,are they a good amp and what might be a fair price today for one thats in good condition ?? I'm looking around for something to go with a CT-28v I recently aquired. Opinions or alternative suggestions will be welcomed!GDB

I looked up the AV-806x on eBay and saw that since toward the end of April they have ranged from $491 to $605 including shipping. There were four sold in that period, and only one was bought with a 'Buy It Now' option.

"You're not drunk if you can lie on the floor without holding on." —Dean Martin

A quick check of my own little stash produced these...A Carver C-5, C-16, TFM-45, (2)TFM-25's, SD/A-370 disc, TDR-2400 cass, TX-11B tuner, all compliments of the Lynnwood, WA area of the good ole U.S.A.

Just for kickers NOT Carvers but.....Soundcraftsman power amps models A20801 and PM860 from Santa Ana Cal. and a little S.A.E model A205 from sunny Los Angeles.

Although quite different in design, the Soundcraftsman A20801 has a uniquely similar headroom sound to the Carver TFM-25.

Just for kickers NOT Carvers but.....Soundcraftsman power amps models A20801 and PM860 from Santa Ana Cal. and a little S.A.E model A205 from sunny Los Angeles.

Although quite different in design, the Soundcraftsman A20801 has a uniquely similar headroom sound to the Carver TFM-25.

Michael, are you absolutely sure about that SD/A-370 being made in Lynnwood, WA? Because this is what is in the Carver Database: Consumer version of PSD-36b, made by Yamaha in Japan, uses Yamaha 10CD cartridges RH-36 Remote. Notice in the pic below the Made In Japan at the bottom right hand side and the Lynnwood, WA near the top.

PSD-36b front/rear

PSB=36b-Front-Back.jpg (39.94 KiB) Viewed 2754 times

If yours is different, could you please post pics of both the front and rear in the Gallery as we have no pictures of this unit available. And, if possible, could you also post pics of your TDR-2400 as we don't have pics of it either. Every pic helps us document all of this older gear for future generations.

devnull wrote:I must say that I have to agree with anatech regarding foreign made products. I've owned a number of Japanese made products that worked perfectly well, never had any issues whatsoever. With regard to the Japanese made products, I remember growing up in the '70s and looking at various cheap products you'll inevitably encounter and finding a number of them were made in Japan. Labor was cheap in Japan at the time compared to the US, and that's where the cheap products were made. It's not as if they were name brand products, they were the generic crap that would be generic crap whether these products (and I remember plastic was looked at with disdain at the time, too) were made in Japan or the US, or anywhere else for that matter.

I designed tooling for not quite 20 years for the heavy manufacturing industry. I got out of Michigan about 7 years into that stretch, so the various products for which I designed tooling drifted away from the automotive industry. In '95, I got a contract to work at the engine plant in Milwaukee for Harley Davidson. They were just tooling up to roll out the newly designed FL series engine, and I was part of the group working on that. It was interesting to be there at that time, as that was the first full redesign of a Harley Engine since the early '30s. The Evo engine wasn't a new design, as in from scratch, but a redesign of the existing engine.

I saw the last manual line come out of the plant. It was a line of drill presses that, if I recall correctly, drilled and tapped the various bolt holes in the engine cases. It was just below the engineering mezzanine where my office was in the plant.

I also was somewhat surprised to see the choices of machine tools the All-American company had made to build their engines. Mitsui-Seiki, Toyoda, Mori-Seiki, Okuma, Mazak were but a few among the machine tools I saw. The Capitol Drive Plant consisted of something like 90-95% foreign made machine tools. I'd guess that 10% where from Europe. The rest, US made. I don't have a problem with this, and spoke to one of the engineers that was on the group that determined what should be bought based on studies they did about the situation. He told me that they looked at Cincinnati Milacron's offerings, but could not justify buying them because they simply could not match the performance of the horizontal boring mills from Toyoda. Their studies concluded that the Toyodas were the best choice.

I do have to admit I find this a bit hypocritical, that being how Harley professes to be the All-American company, then does that, but that's just my belief. I fully understand why they did what they did, but the sheen I used to see is somewhat faded. I don't know if the ratios (and I'm just guessing on the numbers, but there were very very few American made machine tools no matter what) have changed in the meantime, but I doubt it.

John

-i know this is an older ^^^post ^^^...

-even since the 70's harKey used 'showa' narrow and wide glide fr ends...same w/ their mags and rr shox

-the kehin carbertraiters are again jap and used by honda and may be a subsidiary of them [both showa & kehin]...i had 2 5gal pails full of these carbs that i dumped for 10.oo apiece ...dead weight in my business...wouldnt use them as pencil holders even